Pre Flight Painting

My Art What makes my art unique and special? It is that I paint on rice paper with a combination of both ink and watercolor. This is not an ink as found in an ink pen or used with a printing press, but usually in a stick form that needs to be hand ground on a special stone. The rice paper allows the ink and watercolors to flow into subtle color and shade changes and the effect cannot be achieved with other medium. It is an extremely difficult medium to work with, but most rewarding in terms of a finished art piece. Think of this... it would be like painting on a delicate napkin, whereby the napkin would merely disintegrate once you would try to brush over it again. You would end up with a very soggy mess! What this means is that the artist has only one chance, one brush stroke, one calculated effort to get it right the first time in order to express a feeling without forming an overstatement. I love this art form because it allows me to express the subject matters I paint in a spontaneous visual way. It allows the viewer to use his or her own interpretation filling in the blanks and thus heightening there experience with my art. This is an ancient and very demanding art form. It is not only based on the technique of brush strokes, the understanding of how all things are connected together, but is based on the discipline found in Asian martial arts. It took me many years of study to master this art form and its underlying spiritual understandings. For me it is an escape from the fast paced busyness of city life and the problems of the world. I grew up in the suburbs and outskirts of rural upstate New York. My art represents my early experiences as well as my new on going experiences with nature. And these experiences and passions continue to go on and on. It could be a past memory of walking through a farm pasture coming in contact with the surroundings or the peacefulness of taking a nap in a meadow with the sun beaming down on my face on a cool autumn day. In turn it could be the excitement of climbing on cliffs and exploring caves as I did in upstate NY’s, “Thatcher Park”. Or my art could be based on my travels in the untamed tranquil jungles of Colombia or exploring the swamp lands and marshes in the south studying the wild life there. My landscape works often reflect an imaginary peaceful place. A place one would like to go to and meditate.